Using Google Map View on iOS versus on Android - iphone

on iOS you don't need to specify the Google Map API key. But In android, you do have to specify, so the question why such difference?

They are completely different and the iOS one was written by Apple and directly licensed to them. The license is different.
Obviously features are different too with the iOS version in my opinion being more feature rich.

Related

Does Flutter Support iOS Features?

I am starting to work on one big project which includes Sirikit, Game Center, Fingerprint, health kit and home kit etc.
So my doubt is can I implement those features & other features which are provided by ios using the flutter..?
Flutter can't generate bitcode. So, it can't integrate features like Siri, interactive notifications, watchOS, tvOS, Today and other modern extensions.
It compiles like it was before 2015. Before iOS extensions. With same limitations.
Yes and no - you could definitely use some and probably all of those, but you'll have to write Platform Channels. I use fingerprint for example in my app.
There may exist plugins for some of the functionality - see the flutter packages page.

Flash iOS applications

I am currently building an iOS application with flash CS5 and I would need some help with a couple of the features:
Is it possible to add in-app purchases? If yes, how does that work?
Is it possible to add iAd advertising to the app? If so, how? If not, is there any good alternative that works with flash?
How can I save data from within the app so it will be there eaten if the user restarts the app and even the device (like for a headboard and such)?
Any help is highly appreciated!!! :D
If it were a few months ago. Then answer would be an unequivocal no. However, presently, the answer is "perhaps" (or if you are an optimist, "probably"). With the release of Air 3.0, it now supports Native Extensions. These extensions are native code that have a wrapper API around them so that they can be compiled in with and called from an Air application.
In fact, I decided to look around real quick while researching for this answer and found a repo where it looks like somebody has implemented in-app purchases via a ANE. But I haven't tested this extension personally, but it may be a good starting point to see how it is implemented.
The reason you wont find too much information about ANE's yet is because they were only recently supported in the Air 3.0 update that happened last month. They are currently unsupported in Flash CS5 (or 5.5) or Flash Builder 4.5. They are supported in Flash Builder 4.6, which is currently in a closed beta. But you might be able to sneak in still, and it should be released soon.
The biggest "drawback" is that these extensions need to be developed in the native format for the device you are targeting. So that means, if you want to make an iOS extension, then you are writing it in Objective-C and xcode on a mac.
Pretty much the same answer as before. It should be possible with a ANE. But I haven't found any examples of anybody doing it yet.
It is very simple to save data/state to the device. You'll want to look into the SharedObject.getLocal() method if you want to the LSO. Or you can just use low-level File writing. Check out File.applicationStorageDirectory. For sensitive information that should be encrypted into into the EncryptedLocalStore class, which I believe is supported on iOS but not on Android.
All of these should provide a good way for you to persist data between application sessions.
With AIR 3 you can now use native extensions to call into the native platform code to achieve the functionality not provided by AIR Actionscript APIs. To answer your questions.
in app purchase. I have a sample at http://code.google.com/p/in-app-purchase-air-ios
iAd. I have a sample at http://code.google.com/p/iad-air-ios/
As others have already answered use local shared objects.

Compiling an iPhone XCode project to work on Android

I have an iPhone app which is written in XCode and is currently selling on the iTunes app store. I want to be able to release it for the Android market. Is there any way to compile my app from XCode to work on the Android operating system. I don't really want to learn a new language and completely rewrite my app, so was wondering if there is an easier way.
There isn't any way to compile Android apps from Xcode, and i strongly doubt that Apple would introduce such a feature - if it's even technically possible to do. Sorry.
But if you have Objective C down, you shouldn't have to much problems understanding Java (which is used for creating Android apps).
Check the link below for a pretty comprehensive guide to start learning java and code for the Android platform:
http://mobile.tutsplus.com/tutorials/android/java-tutorial/
Good luck!
No, in general you can't do this. Even if assuming Objective-C can be compiled/converted into Java (which is most likely will not be true for times to come), you'll need to rewrite UI part; then most of OS APIs are different too. There are several features that iOS has that Android lacks or does not have open API for it, or has limited API, or has conceptually different or just different API.
Its just easier to move some of your iOS code into C/C++ shared library and then make sure that it compiles and works on both platforms. And then make platform dependent pieces separately for each platform (UI, hardware related stuff, etc.). This way you'll have at least part of your code shared.

Is there a way to develop a cross-platform app for iPhone/iPad/Android? [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
Closed 12 years ago.
Possible Duplicate:
Technology to write iPhone, BlackBerry and Android phone at the same time?
Edit - guys, we need one more vote to close this. This question is a dup (read the comments)
I've heard that Apple banned such tools. Ok, so Apple lifted their ban in September. Still, the question holds - is there a sane way to develop apps to these two platforms without writing nearly everything twice?
Is there something I'm missing, or is the current state of affairs really that every company that develops a cross-platform legally has to maintain two code bases?
Apple reversed their ban in early September after receiving some pressure from the FTC and EU. However, unless you plan on using a third-party tool such as Adobe Flash Pro CS5 (I believe you can create AIR apps that will run on Android this way, as well as the much publicized iOS functionality), you'll have to maintain two codebases anyway, as Android apps are written in Java and iOS apps in Objective-C, two vastly differently languages with vastly different APIs.
You can always use standard HTML5 technologies to make a pure web app. Apple has two tracks for apps: native apps through the App Store written in Objective-C, or web apps that have only the restrictions of the underlying HTML5 technologies.
If you don't like pure web apps you can even merge the two and make a custom app that displays heavily customized web-like content in an embedded browser view (UIWebKit on iOS). Android and iOS web browsers frameworks are from WebKit and very close in features/appearance/conformance.
Instead of starting from a viewpoint of "I can't do X on Apple's closed iOS" start with "Can I do this in any supported application technology, even if its web-based or a web app hybrid, available across all platforms?"
I've done some research on this recently and have found a few companies that can to do this for you.
Appcelerator Titanium Mobile. They make a product that allows you to write your code in Javascript. I've found that the business logic, like networking, files, etc are write once, but the UI has quite a bit of if(android) else \iphone logic to get right. Apps will look native.
FeedHenry. They are more of a HTML based solution, but have a broader support of devices. More than just iphone and android. The sdk is still pretty early, and work can only be done in their special ide that is web based.
Phonegap. A javascript/css/html based framework that targets the iPhone, Android, and the Blackberry.
There are plusses and minuses to all of the solutions. Depending on your app's complexity, it may be a good decision to pick a platform like those to develop on. Coding an app could be much faster if the features they support are right for your app. Right now, it seems that they are all in early release phases and don't support a full toolkit that a developer would be used to, like a debugger, full IDE support, etc. Also, many of them build to a lowest common feature set, so you may not get all of the new release features as they come out, you would have to wait for a particular version of the platform to be released in order to have them.
XMLVM: Android to iPhone
XMLVM can translate your Android code to Objective-C for iPhone. But as what I know you still need a Mac to compile the iPhone application.
Android has the NDK (native dev kit) to allow C and C++ code to be included in APKGs and called from Java via the JNI. Apple's toolchain will also deal with both; the code that will be different will be the platform interface code, mostly in Java on Android and ObjC on iOS.
This is only useful when the bulk of your application is in C or C++.
An alternate would be to go with MonoTouch and the upcoming MonoDroid, if everything works out you could basically code C# on all platforms including of course Win7 Mob.
It looks promising but haven't tried it myself yet.
In September, Apple lifted some of the restrictions in the iOS license that had made it difficult to do cross-platform development. See this press release. I'm not familiar with the details of the current license, but you can get a copy through their developer program.
Another possibility that would be the Rhodes framework, if you like MVC, ORM, and Ruby.
take a look at the System.getProperty() values with android the vendor shows as The Android Project. I haven't looked at the iPhone or the IPad since I don't have one but hopefully they have something changed for their's too. But this will only work with java that I know of.

Google Analytics within iPhone SDK 4 Built App

Three questions for iPhone developers using Google Analytics within their apps for tracking use of their apps:
Will using Google Analytics cause us to be in breach of the terms and conditions of the Apple SDK 4 for developers?
If the answer to #1 is YES, then what are we -- as iPhone developers -- allowed to use to track usage of our apps?
Has anyone who is using the iPhone SDK 4 built their apps that included the Google Analytics library and found it not to work? I'm being told by my developer that it doesn't work when you build with a Base SDK set to iPhone Device 4.0 and and an iPhone OS Deployment Target set to iPhone OS 3.0.
Thanks in advance!
Answers to your questions:
Yes, with the current API and data collection it looks like it is not compliant with the terms of the SDK. I am using both Flurry and Google in my apps because they offer different feature sets that I need. While Flurry has been very vocal that they are working with Apple to resolve the terms of the SDK, Google hasn't said a peep. So, I'm nervous about using Google but not Flurry, because I think Flurry will change their data gathering if Apple presses hard enough. In any event, I have made sure that I can rip out either analytics service quickly if Apple rejects my app.
My understanding is that it's fine to collect your own device data, as long as you don't report it to others. You especially don't want to share any data that would hint at new devices. That's what got Flurry in trouble. Just remember that you are under NDA with Apple, so anything not publicly announced is between you and Apple. There are also rules about what you do with Device IDs, so make sure you understand those as well.
I am using Google analytics on iOS 4, with deployment target set to 3.0. While I no longer have a device to test against 3.0, it is deployed on the AppStore and seems to be working. (No crash reports)
Louie, I encourage you to take a look at Localytics, our app analytics service. Our service is real-time, we don't sell data to third parties and we release the source code to our libraries.
We also have an updated library that works better with the multitasking or fast-user switching in iOS 4: http://www.localytics.com/blog/
Check out www.flurry.com - they have an awesome service!
They allow you to add "events" so you know not only how many times the apps been downloaded, opened, removed... but you know what buttons and areas they are navigating to once the app is open.
If your app uses core location, you can even see where the users are on a map. Very cool!
Good luck my friend!